Jeff Johnson

Jeff John­son is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/writer/photographer who stars in Wood­shed Films’ 180° South – A trip that mir­rors the leg­endary jour­ney of Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tomp­kins. An accom­plished writer, his works have appeared in Surfer’s Jour­nal, Surfer, and Alpin­ist. We spent some time with Jeff to learn more.

What was your child­hood like?
I grew up in Danville, Cal­i­for­nia in the East Bay San Fran­cisco. Lots of open space in my neighborhood—very few fences. Grassy, rolling hills. Oak trees and wal­nut orchards. The girls rode horses. The guys rode motorbikes.

When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I quit all the team sports, got a hair­cut and a skate­board, and was imme­di­ately at odds with all the jocks, par­ents and teach­ers. Sud­denly, I had a new, small group of dis­en­chanted friends who all felt the same about our sur­round­ings. We wanted out.

In the 80’s, surf­ing still had an outlaw/counterculture vibe. I was nat­u­rally attracted to it. I started surf­ing when I was old enough drive to the coast. It took over my life. It’s all I wanted to do. I moved to Hawaii just after high school grad­u­a­tion in 1987. I was back and fourth till I moved per­ma­nently to the North Shore of Oahu in 1990. This was my home base for about 15 years.

When did you get your first surf­board?
There was a guy named Jimmy Olson who lived on my block when I was a kid. He was about four to five years older than me. The guy was like a god to me. He and his bud­dies were the only surfers in Danville. They looked dif­fer­ent and acted dif­fer­ent. He built surf­boards in his garage, start to fin­ish. When I was about 15, he took me to a remote point­break north of Santa Cruz. He told me it was a “secret spot” and we were “kooks” from inland. I took this as a warn­ing: Secret spot, good. Kooks, bad. I caught my first wave that day, but it didn’t really get me till a year or so later. Then, he sold me a used board. I think it was a 6’0” thruster with shal­low rocker, full rails, wide tail—full-on 80’s board.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
It was an over­whelm­ing sensation—all this water mov­ing beneath me. I felt weight­less watch­ing the water pass by the rails. It mak­ing me kinda dizzy. I couldn’t believe this sen­sory over­load tak­ing place in only a few sec­onds. These sec­onds I played over and over in my head as I lay in bed that night. The bug. I remem­ber not want­ing to rinse off the salt the ocean left on my body—laying there with salty hair dream­ing of the next wave.

Who did you look up to and admire when you were a young boy?
My dad has always been my biggest hero. He was once a ski patrol, an excel­lent skier. Still is! He had me snow ski­ing when I was four years old. He’d wake me up at four in the morn­ing to drive to Tahoe. I’d sleep on the floor­boards of the truck and would wake up with the first light at Don­ner Pass. It was so great to watch him move over snow—so grace­ful and fluid. I’d try my hard­est to emu­late him. Those early years had a huge impact on me. I still love wak­ing up long before the sun and going on crazy mis­sions. You even­tu­ally become your par­ents, you know. I’ve become my dad in many ways.

I was skat­ing in the era of Chris­t­ian Hosoi and all the Bones Brigade guys, but I was into learn­ing about Jay Adams and Stacy Per­alta. I’d search for all those old Ste­cyk arti­cles and Fried­man pho­tos. I’d learn their old tricks and mixed it up with the new ones.

As I got into surf­ing, I didn’t care who won the world title—you’d think I’d be into Potts or Cur­ren or who­ever was hot at the time. But, I was into read­ing about Miki Dora and Pat Cur­ren, Mead Hall and the North Shore in the 50’s and 60’s.

As a climber, it was Yvon Chouinard and Royal Rob­bins and Yosemite’s Camp 4 in the 60’s.

All these guys were way before my time, but they were the ones I looked up to and still do.

What inspired you to become a sto­ry­teller?
My Dad is a great sto­ry­teller. His sto­ries are so good that I often tell them myself. Even now, he’ll say, “Have I ever told you about … ?” And I will say “no” just so I can hear the story again.

I didn’t start read­ing till after high school—then I con­tin­ued inces­santly. Authors like Charles Bukowski, Cor­mac McCarthy, James Salter, John Fante have inspired me to write and share stories.

What was it about Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tomp­kins that inspired you to cre­ate 180 South?
Around 10 years ago, my friend Amy Kum­ler handed me a dusty old video­cas­sette tape. She worked for Patag­o­nia and said she found it locked up in a vault. She had to sneak it out of there because no one out­side the office was sup­posed to see it. “Moun­tain of Storms” was writ­ten on it. Chris Mal­loy and I popped it in the VCR one evening. It blew our minds. In 1968, Doug and Yvon and friends drove a van from Ven­tura, Cal­i­for­nia to Patag­o­nia, Chile to climb Mount Fitzroy. They surfed the way down there, climbed live vol­ca­noes and basi­cally goofed off. They filmed the entire thing. But it was what these two men later became. Yvon would come home and name his cloth­ing com­pany Patag­o­nia. Doug, who had already started and sold The North Face, would cre­ate the cloth­ing com­pany Esprit with his wife.

Doug sold his share of Esprit in the late 80s. He put all his money into cre­at­ing the world’s biggest privately-owned land con­ser­va­tion project down in Patag­o­nia. Yvon’s envi­ron­men­tal efforts with his com­pany, Patag­o­nia, would set a stan­dard on the out­door indus­try and have an effect on the way busi­ness is done world­wide. We knew right away that this for­got­ten film we were watch­ing was the begin­ning of a jour­ney for these two men. It was the trip that changed their lives.

Chris had made some suc­cess­ful surf films already. We were inspired to do a sim­i­lar trip (either fol­low­ing in their foot­steps or some­thing in the same spirit) and make a film about it. In 2006, it all started to come together as 180 South … a dream come true.

How are surf­ing and climb­ing sim­i­lar?
They are both about work­ing with nature rather than try­ing to con­trol it. This kind of effort attracts a cer­tain individual—one who is open and cre­ative. So, it’s not as much the actual acts that are sim­i­lar. It’s the culture.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to, what place in par­tic­u­lar stands out? And why?

I would have to say Rapa Nui/Easter Island. I sailed through there on my way to Chile while film­ing 180 South. I had always wanted to go there. I’ve been all over Poly­ne­sia and going to the fur­thest cor­ner intrigued me—the most remote hab­it­able piece of land on Earth. It has the most inter­est­ing his­tory, too. The island is in a really good place right now.

I found some fun surf there, too. There’s no per­fect set-ups, mostly peaky, ledgy reefs. Small waves and some big wave spots. You can surf alone if you want.

What is the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Com­pas­sion.

Do you have any regrets or wish you had done some­thing dif­fer­ently?
I’m really stoked right now. If I had done some­thing dif­fer­ently, my life right now might be totally dif­fer­ent. So, I guess I have no regrets. You can always look back and see how you could have done some­thing bet­ter. But that’s how life is. It would suck if you did every­thing per­fectly; it’d be boring.

What are you most proud of?
Fol­low­ing my heart, stick­ing to my guns, like my heroes have taught me.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
When I was heav­ily into skat­ing, I was kinda going down a crooked path—spending time in The City, doing drugs, get­ting arrested and so on. Then, surf­ing came along and demanded a health­ier lifestyle. I wasn’t gonna show up at the beach in my leather jacket all f*cked up. Not to say surf­ing kept me out of trou­ble … just a dif­fer­ent kind of trouble.

I knew surf­ing could be a long life for me. Do it till you die. I watch what I eat. I stay fit. Do a lit­tle yoga here and there. I still skate, but surf­ing became a lifestyle for me. The addic­tion forced me to work odd jobs. It led me to Hawaii, sent me around the world, intro­duced me to so many peo­ple, friends, cul­ture. With­out it, I’d be a totally dif­fer­ent person.

What brings you the most hap­pi­ness in the world?
This might sound cliché but … freedom.

Who are some of the peo­ple you feel are shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
I have no idea.

What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
Right now I’m rid­ing this board Fletcher Chouinard made for me. It’s a 5’8” quad, wide like a fish, shal­low rocker … super fast. I rode his on our last trip to Indone­sia and was freak­ing out on it, so I had him make me one. You can glide through flat sec­tions like on a fish, but then you can turn it on a dime too. It works really well in slow, mushy crap and it per­forms in over­head surf as well. The board is a vari­a­tion of the Quark model, so he calls it the Fark.

As far as my favorite surf spot? That’s a tough one. Though I never really ded­i­cated myself to it while liv­ing on the North Shore for all those years, but I’d have to say Back­door. I got some of the best waves of my life there. Noth­ing com­pares. Liv­ing in Cal­i­for­nia now, I’d say its right-hand point­breaks. Even my friends in Hawaii froth over the point­breaks here when they’re on.

What’s your favorite meal?
When you’ve been surf­ing all day, you’re starv­ing, and you’re in the mid­dle of nowhere and your buddy hands you a sloppy peanut but­ter and jelly sand­wich? I’d say that is the best meal ever. My favorite.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I’ve been trip­ping on these freaks from Mal­ibu lately—a guy named Blake Mills, and a band called Daws. They both used to be in a band called Simon Daws—way ahead of their time. The White Buf­falo, Ugly Cas­sanova, Wilco, Metallica’s first three albums—out of con­trol good. Mason Jen­nings, Todd Han­ni­gan, White Stripes. Local band here in Ven­tura called Rey Fresco—killing it. Mozart when I read or write. X is always in there—one of my all-time favorite bands. A lit­tle Devo here and there. Dri­ving back from Yosemite the other day, I lis­tened to Neil Young for four hours; all this boot­leg live stuff with a small audi­ence. What a leg­end! Still mak­ing rel­e­vant music after all these years.

What are you most grate­ful for?
Another cliché …hav­ing the best friends in the world and a sup­port­ive family.

What’s next for Jeff John­son?
I have no idea. First, I’m gonna get up and out of this chair.

Find out more about Jeff John­son here. For more details about the film 180° South click here. To visit the 180° South Patag­o­nia site click here.